almost
by loonmoony
Summary: In which sometimes almost is enough. A story of how Sakura saved Sasuke.


tw: mentions of suicide/suicide attempts

* * *

almost

* * *

_Dear Sakura_, the letter began.

Sakura fell back into the flower-printed armchair behind her, the backs of her fingers pressed against her mouth as she choked back a sob. Tears gathered in her eyes, thick and wet. The edge of the letter crinkled in her grip.

She almost fixed him, damn it. They had made so much progress. The counseling had been helping, even though he was reluctant to admit it. The medicine was helping too.

Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura's boyfriend, had witnessed his entire family be brutally murdered at the tender age of seven. A masked serial killer had entered his home and slaughtered his parents and brother, leaving Sasuke alone in the pooling blood on the carpet. He sat there for two days. It took the authorities years to catch the man responsible.

Understandably, Sasuke was horribly scarred by such an event. So much so that he struggled to have a real relationship with anyone. Sakura believed it was out of a deep-rooted fear that anyone he got close to would be taken away from him.

She had met him in grade school. She and her friend Naruto had welcomed him into their pack, but Sasuke had always held them at arm's length, even though Sakura was clearly infatuated with him. Sasuke stood by them, but never too close. He was often adrift. Alone.

By the time high school came around, he had essentially shut Sakura and Naruto off completely, along with everyone else. He bounced from foster home to foster home, causing as many problems as he possibly could because, damn it, he needed someone to help him.

And Sakura and Naruto tried. They reasoned with him, begged him, hung around by his locker every day just to make sure he was still alive and coming to school. He told them that if they didn't leave him alone, he'd kill them both someday.

Sakura and Naruto could not be so easily scared, however. They fought and pushed and searched until one day Sasuke came back to them, but even though he was _there_, deep inside he really wasn't.

Nevertheless, he and Sakura began dating freshman year of college. The beginning had been rocky, to be sure, but it slowly got better. His night terrors began to fade, his random bouts of severe anger and angst became rarer every day, and his near deathly fear of physical touch began to disappear. The first time they had actually had sex, Sakura had cried and told him how proud of him she was. He had merely huffed at her and absently pressed two fingers to her forehead.

_I know you're going to be disappointed_, the letter continued. She swore to god she couldn't breathe. _But this really is for the best, you don't deserve to have me dragging you down anymore._

But one day, a drizzly Tuesday, Sakura remembered, everything had come rushing back like a tidal wave and they were both drowning again. Just like before. He screamed and they fought and he didn't sleep and he couldn't eat and things were desperately not okay. His doctor increased his doses of medication and his therapist began seeing him three times a week, but nothing was helping.

It all came to a head the night he had accidentally hit her. He had been having a night terror, and Sakura was doing her best to sooth him, as she always did. Afraid and asleep, Sasuke had lashed out wildly, managing to punch Sakura in the face unintentionally. He couldn't look at himself in the mirror for weeks, after that. Sakura knew he would never forgive himself, even though she did.

_I'm stepping out of your life_, the letter continued. _Fill the space I leave behind with someone who deserves you, with someone who can take care of you._

Sakura was sobbing now.

_I'm not coming home this time_, it read, and her tears made the words blurry as she tried to read them. _I'm sorry, Sakura. I swear I almost stayed._

It was always almost, with Sasuke, wasn't it?

Sakura walked on wobbling legs to their bedroom, _her_ bedroom now, and nearly choked on a sob when she saw that his side of the dresser had been ransacked. The drawers stood open and empty – mirroring her own heart. On her pillow was a silver necklace with a little butterfly pendant. Sakura picked it up, laying it carefully on her nightstand. It had belonged to Sasuke's mother…

_You'll be okay, Sakura, I promise. I love you._

She flopped listlessly onto the bed, pulling his pillow to hug against her chest and breathing in the already-fading scent of his shampoo. It was almost completely gone.

"_God_!" Sakura screamed up at the ceiling, chucking the pillow as hard as she could against the wall. She tucked her fingers against her scalp and pulled at the hair there.

Living with a person with severe mental illness had its effects on Sakura. While usually Sasuke's unpredictable and erratic behavior kept her grounded, because she had to keep _him_ grounded, his sudden absence had her spiraling harder than he usually was.

This wasn't the first time he took off. No, not the first time, but she had this sinking and horrible crushing feeling that it would be the last. Sasuke wasn't going to come back this time, he said so.

And if there was one thing that Sasuke wasn't? It was a liar.

Breathing through the crushing pain in her chest, Sakura sat up and did her best to think. Her brain felt as though it had been turned to syrup and her body felt useless but she had to _think_ because she had to find Sasuke. Before he did something horrible. Like last time…

She would never forget the night she found him standing on the other side of the bridge railing, his eyes cast downwards at the crashing, swirling waters of the Konoha River below him. She had begged and pleaded with him for the better part of ten minutes before she could convince him to climb back over the railing and onto the road. He'd been in the hospital for almost four days, after that.

Panic seized Sakura's throat as she pulled her tennis shoes on over her bare feet. That was Sasuke's place. She had no idea how long he had been gone, but she'd be damned if she wasn't there to stop him from jumping off that god-forsaken bridge.

She drove chaotically, unintentionally running a stop sign and a red light, as well. Luckily, the streets were dead at this hour. She hadn't gotten off from the hospital until three am and it was now pushing four o'clock.

She hoped to god he wouldn't be standing there when she got there. He had taken his things, right? That was a sign that he was going to stay somewhere.

But he had also left her his mother's necklace. A gift.

And she knew what that meant.

She pressed her foot down harder on the gas pedal, willing the car to travel faster than it could as tears began to blur her vision. She would _not_ lose him like this. If he wanted to leave her in pursuit of another life, fine. But she wouldn't let him take off to end it all.

Her heart nearly catapulted into her throat as her car skidded to a stop halfway along Konoha Bridge.

He was there.

That bastard was _there_, standing on the wrong side of the railing, eyes cast down at the cold, blue water below.

Sakura threw open the door of the car, not caring that she was abandoning it in the middle of the road, and ran towards him, the inside of her tennis shoes rubbing blisters into her sockless feet. She didn't care in the slightest.

"Sasuke!" she called to him when he still hadn't turned around. She knew he had heard her car. "Sasuke, don't make me climb over there and save you."

"Don't," came his resolute, distant reply. "Go home, Sakura."

"No!" Sakura called back, desperately trying to remain calm. She knew how serious this situation was. Once Sasuke had decided to do something, there was almost no talking him out if it.

He didn't answer her, but she could tell from his change in posture that he had shoved his hands down into his pockets.

Nearly blind with panic and tears, Sakura whipped out her cellphone and typed a quick text to Naruto. _Sasuke bridge help now_. She slid her phone absently back into her pocket, knowing Naruto would immediately know what she was talking about. He'd be there.

Meanwhile, she needed to try to reason with Sasuke, to keep him talking. Until Naruto could show up and use brute strength to pull him back over the railing, that is.

"S-Sasuke-kun?" Sakura called out gently, leaning up against the railing. "Talk to me. Please."

"I don't want to talk, Sakura. Go home."

The fact that he had answered her at all was promising.

"I'm not going home, Sasuke-kun, you know that. Just like you wouldn't go home right now if our roles were reversed."

"Don't say things like that," he snapped at her, back still towards her.

_Damn_. She needed to be careful not to upset him. Every word she chose right now was important.

"I-I'm sorry," Sakura stuttered out, willing herself to stay strong and not fall apart. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun. Just please, come over the railing and we can talk. Don't make me watch this."

"Go. Home." Sakura could hear the tremble and the tears in his voice.

That's when she heard it. The squeal of tires. She looked over just in time to see a car swerve to avoid hitting her car parked in the middle of the road…and then to see it overcorrect and swerve back – right towards her.

Time shifted into slow motion, then.

Sasuke had turned around upon hearing the car, and had finally looked at her.

She turned her eyes away from the car, still moving towards her impossibly slowly, heard the screeching of the tires as the driver tried desperately to stop. She knew they wouldn't be able to, and yet she still couldn't move, couldn't breathe. She knew time hadn't really slowed down, and that was the reason why.

She could finally see Sasuke's face, see as he moved to jump over the railing to get to her. But she knew he wouldn't make it. At least he was coming back over the edge…she could only hope Naruto would get there in time to prevent him from jumping once she was gone.

How was this fair? Sasuke had already watched his family die, was the universe really going to take her right in front of him, too?

"Sakura!" she heard him yell, but it sounded like he was miles away. Like she was underwater.

The cry of her name brought her speeding back to reality, just in time to be overwhelmed by headlights and noise and darkness.

* * *

Light was the first thing she registered.

And then beeping and the smell of bleach.

Was she…was she at work?

With a gasp and a jolt, Sakura's eyes shot open, displaying her view of a white-tiled ceiling. She _was_ at work.

Head pounding, Sakura did her best to prop herself up on her elbow, sending a major zap of pain through her arm and shoulder when she did so. She fell immediately back to the bed with a pathetic moan, eyes fluttering closed once more.

"Mmm, Sakura?" a voice startled her eyes back open. _His_ voice.

Ignoring the pain, Sakura sat straight up and blinked, relief washing through her when she saw a sleepy-looking Sasuke rushing to her side.

"Lie back down, you colossal moron," Sasuke chided, gently guiding her back down to a lying position. She pouted up at him until he fell into a kneeling position beside her bed, pressing his forehead gently against her own.

"You're here," Sakura breathed, tears beginning to leak down her face. The events that had led to her apparent hospitalization were coming back to her. The car. The bridge.

"Of course I'm here," Sasuke replied with a shuddering breath. "I swear, I'm never leaving your side again."

He pressed his lips to hers, then, the first physically intimate act that he had initiated in weeks. It only caused Sakura to cry harder.

"Stop," Sasuke muttered, beginning to wipe away each tear as it fell with his thumbs. "Stop, Sakura. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

"No," Sakura spoke between sobs. "It's not. I shouldn't have left my car in the road like that."

"You were only there because of me, though," Sasuke sighed bitterly. "If I hadn't…"

Sakura pressed her finger to his lips weakly. "Stop. I'd do it again and again and again if it meant saving your life. Would you have come back to me if that car wouldn't have hit me? Were you going to do it?"

His lack of answer told her what she needed to know.

"See? It was fate," Sakura smiled genuinely up at him. "That car saved your life, and by extension, mine. If you think I can live without you, you're insane."

"You're an idiot," Sasuke replied, burying his head into the crook of her neck. The dampness there told her he didn't want her to see him crying. "I swear, Sakura, that was the last time. I'm going to be better, I'm going to get more help. For you."

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun," Sakura answered, patting him weakly on the back. "I trust you."

"I can't believe I almost lost you," he pulled back, tracing the side of her face with his fingers, his eyes still red from tears.

"Only almost, Sasuke-kun," Sakura replied, beginning to feel sleepy as she gazed lovingly up at him. "Only almost."

* * *

AN: Originally this whole story was supposed to be sad AF, but I decided to give it a nice little happy ending instead. It's funny...when I write happy fics I get this weird impulse to end them sadly, but with this actual sad fic, I just couldn't do it.

shrug*

Also, I posted this from my phone, so sorry if there are typos/weird formatting things.

I hope you liked this! Leave me a review and let me know.

~love, loony


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